Thursday, February 26, 2009

Related Comedy: Parking

George: Look, I have my system. First I look for the dream spot right in front of the door, then I slowly expand out in concentric circles.

Elaine: Oh come on, George, please put it in a garage. I don't want to spend an hour looking for a space.

George: I can't park in a garage.

Elaine: Why?

George: I don't know, I just can't. Nobody in my family can pay for parking, it's a sickness. My father never paid for parking; my mother, my brother, nobody. We can't do it.

Elaine: I'll pay for it.

George: You don't understand. A garage. I can't even pull in there. It's like going to a prostitute. Why should I pay, when if I apply myself, maybe I could get it for free? (he hears a horn honking) What? What do you want? Go around me, I'm looking for spaces.

6 comments:

Bob Davis
said...

This bit of "shtick" reminded me of my first wife and public transit. Once she bought a car (as a teenager) she never set foot in a bus again. I used to say she would sooner die that take a bus to the hospital.

Sam S: you don't need smart parking meters. Just smart parking administrators. Really, even a dumb pricing scheme that's based on a very crude static demand model would do much better than the current absurd underpricing.

You guys would be surprised at the politicians and their allies in the media blasting Bloomberg over his plan to close off Broadway in Midtown Manhattan to traffic and make it like the Barcelona Ramblas. And worse, people are actually buying this! A lot of whiny naysayers think streets should be for cars, but I know that there are a lot of people-perhaps a silent majority (even the poll on the right-wing NY Post's website hints that there is) that understands that the streets belong to us, the working folks, not wealthy aristocrats who ride in cabs and black cars all the time, and gas guzzlers who ruin our city with their hummers.

The funny thing was that normally, on Seinfeld, Jerry and Kramer were almost always able to park right in front of their building. In Manhattan.

Of course it's true that in SF or, I assume Manhattan as well, you do, once in a blue moon, find a spot right outside your destination. A college buddy of mine used to refer to those as "Seinfeld spots."

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